Whitechapel Flashcards
How was Whitechapel workhouses segregated?
Men and women were seperate
Vagrants were seperate from long-term residents so they weren’t bad influences
What hard labour was done at Whitechapel Workhouses?
Menial labour such as breaking rocks or picking oakum
How many people were housed in South Grove Workhous Whitechapel and how many beds on it’s casual ward?
About 400 people in the Workhouse and 60 beds for those just staying a night or two
Who were Workhouses in Whitechapel for?
Men and women with no job or home
Orphaned children
Unmarried pregnant women
The physically or mentally sick
The elderly
Was the Whitechapel Workhouse good for children?
It provided them with shelter but they got no skills for their future such as writing or reading.
What type of environment was Whitechapel?
An industrial and urban environment as suffered from pollution
What is smog and what was its nickname?
Smog was smoke and fog that meant you couldn’t see you hand in front of your own face
It’s nickname was pea soupers as had a greenish colour
Where were the immigrants in Whitechapel originally from?
Ireland
Central and Eastern Europe
Russian, Polish and German Jews
What was sanitation in houses like in Whitechapel like?
Terrible houses shared an outside dirty water pump. Normally the toilets would also be shared at the end of the street.
What was Whitechapel’s most famous factory?
Bell foundry were Big Ben was made
What types of sweated trades did the residents of Whitechapel work in?
Tailoring, shoe-making or match making
What factory were matches made in, in Whitechapel?
Bryant and May factory
What were working condition in Whitechapel like?
Cramped, poorly lit, wages were poor and hours were long
What did working in the match factory cause and what was its nickname?
It caused bone cancer from phosphorous poisoning or ‘Fossy Jaw’
What type of jobs were ‘navvies’
Working in railway construction or as labourers on the London Docks
What happen to the economy after the 1870s?
It became increasingly more depressed and unemployment was growing
What did people help to escape from their terrible lives?
Drink alcohol especially gin and do drugs such as opioids
How many brothels and prositutues were there in 1888 in Whitechapel?
62 brothels and 1,200 prositutes
Why did people turn to prositution?
Because there was little work for women and they got a loaf of bread or three pence in return so they could feed their family
What type of area was Whitechapl and what did this mean?
Whitechapel was a dock area so it was ever changing and sailors would stay in Whitechapel normally for a few weeks and then leave.
What did poor sanitation in Whitechapel lead to?
Disease such as typhus, tuberculosis and cholera that were also shared easily
What was overcrowding like in Whitechapel?
Really bad for example a census for 3 Buck’s row showed a family of ten people living in one very small house.
What were slums know as in Whitechapel?
Rookeries
Were rookeries overcrowded?
Yes for example in 1877 one rookery contained 123 rooms and 757 people
What was the layout of Whitechapel like?
Houses built close together with narrow, hardly lit streets.
What was sanitation in the streets on Whitechapel like?
Poor normally open sewers with sewage running in them were in the middle of the streets and rubbish was tipped into the streets
What were wages like for workers in Whitechapel?
Poor and if worked in factory often their rent would be deducted directly and part of their wages could only be spent in factory shop.
What were well off Victorians view of Whitechapel?
They were ignorant of it and believe it was the outcome of sin in the lower classes
What did the government do to scare people away from the workhouses?
Made the people in the workhouses were uniforms, so hard labour and could even be hardly punished for talking
Name some lodging/doss houses in Whitechapel?
The Victoria homes on Commercial street and Whitechapel road, rookery in Flower and Dean street with 31 doss houses and 902 lodges
How many people could be in a room at a Doss house?
18 to 20
What was the price for a double bed in Doss house?
6 to 8d
What was the price for a single bed in a Doss house?
4d
What was the price for a rope in a Doss house?
2d
What was the three relay system at a Doss house?
When each person was allowed eight hours of sleep in the bed, taking turns with two other people in a trio
Up to how many people would you find in one apartment in Whitechapel?
Up to 30 people
What to did apartments in Whitechapel, not consider?
Safety or attractiveness as we built cheaply
Who stayed in apartments and how big were they in Whitechapel?
Poor families stayed in apartments and someone no bigger than one room
Why did Booth make us poverty map?
Because when he was allocating the Lord Mayor’s relief fund, which is a pot of money to help the poor, he realised census documents were insufficient
What did Booth do after realising the census documents were insufficient?
He undertook sociological research project to record poverty levels, living conditions, employment, and religious faith and made a poverty map
What kind of people helped booth with his research?
80 researchers including people from Toynbee hall, a social establishment in London
What will Booth’s poverty be useful for?
Target to specific areas of poverty, so you can help educate and feed those there
What act did Parliament pass in 1875?
The Artisans Dwelling Act
What did the Artisan Dwellings Act do?
It was apart of London’s earliest slum clearance programs to help replace them with better housing
What was the Peabody estate?
An area of Whitechapel that was sold to the Peabody trust which built 11 blocks of flats that contained 286 apartments
What did the Peabody estate help do?
Provided better living accommodations with communal sanitary facilities and reduced overcrowding.
What did you have to be to be able to stay in the Peabody estate?
Had to be steady work and not involved with our alcoholism this help would reduce crimes such as the main crime in Whitechapel, drunk and disorderly
How many people around about benefited from the Peabody fund?
Nearly 10,000 people
When did Thomas Bernardo set up his ragged school?
1867
What was Thomas Bernardi‘s ragged school for?
Poor children who had lost her parents, so they could get a basic education
Who was Jim Jarvis?
A boy who showed Thomas Bernardo, the East End and children, sleeping and gutters
Why and when did Thomas Bernardo start up his first home boys?
Thomas Bernardo set up his first home for boys in 1870 on Stepney Causeway because he didn’t want them living out on the streets
What did the boys and girls learn at Bernardo’s home?
Boys learnt carpentry, metal work, and shoes making able the boys to secure apprenticeships and work and girls learn domestic skills so they could make their way in the world
Who was John Somers?
A boy who Bernardo had to turn away because his shelter was full, but was two days later found dead
What did this lead to Bernardo vowing?
That he would never turn child away
When and where did Bernardo open the girls village home?
In 1876, in Barkingside, Essex and it has 1500 girls
By the time, Bernardo died in 1905, how many Bernardo homes were there?
There were 100 Bernardo homes nationally, caring on average for 85 children, each
What did Bernardo’s organisation produce?
Transformation photos of the children attracting wealthy benefactors
When and what did Bernardo admit about the transformation photos?
In July 1877, Bernado said he took artistic license but only because he wanted to depict the individuals as representative of their social class
Who were the French Huguenots immigrants?
They were protestants that fled France during religious wars and by the 19th century there was 20,000 of them
What were the French Huguenots experience?
They settled in Spitalfields in East End, and their main profession was weaving overtime they simulated into English society
Why did the Irish come to London?
For paid agricultural work in the summer and casual but along the weather in the winter 18th century
What was the Irish immigrants experience?
The community was disliked for having the linguistics and religious difference to the English for example an MP Lord George Gordon instigated anti-Catholic riots in 1870 and 700 died due to this
What happened to the Irish population of immigrants in East End between 1841 and 1851?
It grew tremendously as the first settlers didn’t have enough money to move to America, so worked in labouring jobs on the canals, roads, railway and docks giving themselves the name navvies
Why was there more hate for the Irish community?
Because violence was common within the community and it was often alcohol fuelled
How many Jewish immigrants were there in London?
The Jewish community been coming to London since mid 1600s, but due to the collapse of Poland in 1835 and in 1881 the assassination of Tsar Alexander ll in Russia by 1891 around 30,000 Jews came increasing the population by 95%
What were the Jewish communities experience in Whitechapel?
Local shopkeepers felt Jews were trying to drive out of business as they worked on Sundays due to it not being there holy day. They were also suspicious about their different rules on food clothing, there languages and resented their success.
What jobs did Jewish immigrants have in Whitechapel?
Many Jewish immigrants run tailoring businesses, and they followed government rules about fair work conditions and usually employed new Jewish immigrants
Where did Jewish immigrants live in Whitechapel?
The Jewish community lived and work together in Mile end, Stepney and Spitalfields. Early 1890s many chervots and synagogues have been set up.
Who were the Fenians?
They were Irish nationalism group that wanted to be free from British government control in Ireland and organised the Fenian dynamites campaign between 1867 and 1885
How did the Fenians increase prejudice towards Irish people in White Chapel?
Irish immigrants were all seen as Fenians or possible traitors, and in the police was a special branch formed to counter Irish terrorism not Fenian terrorism
Who were the anarchists?
They were Russian revolutionaries, who wanted to overthrow governments so people could live lives without laws, and wanted greater rights to workers unions
